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Name : Scaly - foot snail ( Chrysomallon squamiferum )
Where it lives : Hydrothermal vents on the seafloor of the Indian Ocean
The scaly-foot snail is so tough it has scales made of iron.
What it eats : As an adult , it does n’t ! All of the escargot ’s nutrition is generated internally , by endosymbiotic bacteria — microbes that hold out in the snail ’s gut .
The scaly - foot snail , or volcano snail , possesses something unique among gastropods : a coat of protective armour covering its foot , made fromhundreds of overlap smoothing iron - infused scales . It fortifies these scales with mineral absorbed from the raging liquid state spewed by hydrothermal outlet and fatal smoker chimneys at the bottom of the Indian Ocean , where piss can reach temperatures of 752 degrees Fahrenheit ( 400 degree Anders Celsius ) .
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Scaly-foot snails also have the largest hearts, relative to body size, of any known animal on Earth.
Within the escargot ’s ordered series , sulphur reacts with iron ionsto build Fe sulfide nanoparticles . Further toughening the escargot ’s defenses is anouter layer of iron sulfidein its shell , making it theonly known multicellular brute to fortify its skeletal frame with branding iron . When the National Museum of Wales acquired a pair of specimen in 2015 , conservator were told to avert using any piss in the preservative solution , because otherwise the snail would take off to rust fungus .
Underneath all that armor , the scaly - foot escargot has a self-aggrandizing affectionateness — the large in the Animal Kingdom relative to the animal ’s size — making up about 4 % of the volume of its entire body . In waters where oxygen levels are low , that enormous heart also supplies oxygen to the symbiotic bacterium that hold up in the snail ’s esophageal gland and play as a built - in food factory . The snails , whose shells value about 2 inches ( 5 centimeter ) in length on average , are sometimes called " sea scaly anteater " for their resemblance to the armor - plate land mammal .
Individualshave both manlike and female sexual practice organs . They creep along the ocean bottom at depth of approximately 1.7 miles ( 2,780 metre ) , and are fuck from just three hydrothermal vent fields to the east of Mauritius , an island off the southeasterly coast of Africa .
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While the snails ' potential habitat adds up to around 0.1 square miles ( 0.3 square km ) , the reach where they are presently found cover just 0.008 square miles ( 0.02 sq km ) . But even this tiny sliver of the deep sea is becoming dangerous for the snails , due to human action .
In 2019 , the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN)added scaly - understructure escargot to its Red List of life at jeopardy of quenching . The snails became the first animal to be listed as " endangered " due to threats to two of its three habitat locations from rich sea mining .
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